The Future Freaks Me Out
by feelslikerain
Summary: This is a story of beginnings and firsts, as well as endings and lasts, it is about falling for the right person at the wrong time. This is the story of James and Lily and how maybe there never was a happily ever after, just a happily ever now. R


Disclaimer: Aristotle is the only thing I own...and technically I don't own him either!

WARNING: Remus is slightly..._different_ in this fic, so if you take issue with that, I suggest you go read a different fanfiction.

_The Future Freaks Me Out_

Peeking through the crack in the door, she could barely make out the figure of two barely moving figures on the floor through the strategically placed piles of clothing that littered the floor. She slowly opened the door, careful not to disturb said figures. She wiped the outside of the jar she was carrying to prevent the water from staining the once perfectly polished wood floor that was years beyond repair, but she was a mother, and it was her job, successful or not, to at least attempt to control the state of her son's room.

_If this doesn't work, then I raised one hell of a sleeper. _

She raised the jar of ice cold water over the sleeping boys and in spite of herself, she smirked, after all, mom's can have a little fun too can't they? And her son certainly didn't pick up his prankster attitude down the street…

With a tilt of her hand and a splash of water the deed was done. There was a series of cursing and shouting before the dark haired boy lifted his head and his eyes flashed angrily towards his guiltily smiling mother.

"Mom! Why the bloody hell did you wake us up?" He grumpily demanded running a hand through his sopping wet hair, simply out of habit, there was no use for it as his normally fly away locks had gone completely limp.

"Us?" Mrs. Potter repeated looking pointedly to the other member of 'us'. James followed his mother's gaze to the undisturbed figure lying a few feet away from him. He furrowed his brow in frustration that he did not have the skill to sleep through the Antarctic Ocean flooding his room. He gave Sirius a firm kick in the back hoping to unsettle his sleep. He had no such success. Sirius simply rolled over and continued to sleep.

At this James' frustration was at an end, he marched over to his mother and took the jar of water and what ever was left in it before returning to Sirius' now snoring figure. He opened Sirius' mouth and the grin that had not long ago graced his mothers face was now planted firmly on his face. He sloppily poured the water into Sirius' now open mouth and held his nose firmly shut with the other hand. It took only a moment for Sirius' eyes to pop open and proceed witth a series of gurgling and choking.

"Mrs. –gasp- Potter!" He stammered out. She smiled lovingly at his pleading person before slipping out of the room.

"Breakfast is in…

…five minutes until we have to leave!" Summer's brother, Riley, hollered from the landing of the staircase a floor below the girl's room.

"Calm down, we're almost ready!" Summer carelessly tossed her hair over her shoulder from her spot on her bed where she was watching her friend, Aubrey, frantically dash around the room, picking up previously discarded items and throwing them into her trunk.

"Well hurry up! I've got to be-"

"At the Head's carriage in a half hour. We realize, Riley." Summer rolled her eyes at her brother's impatience, clearly not understanding what the big rush was. "You really should have gotten up earlier, Aubrey."

Aubrey glared up from her trunk which she was now trying to close with great difficulty, due to the fact that unlike Summer's perfectly arranged trunk complete with folded skirts and organized jumpers, hers was a wreck.

A wrap on the door pulled Summer's attention back to her older brother. As the doorknob began to turn, she jumped up from her comfortable spot and ran forward, pushing all of her weight onto the door in order to block his entrance. If he knew that it was Aubrey who was stalling their departure as she so often did, Summer was positive a lecture would follow, with it Aubrey might find herself walking to Hogwarts rather than sitting in the luxurious train compartments and feasting on the mountains of chocolate frogs that usually found their way into their compartment.

"Don't come in I… don't have pants on!" Summer had never been known for her quick thinking, and this case was no different.

"And why the bloody hell not?" Her brothers voice, previously angry was now laced with curiosity and frustration.

"Because…" Summer caught her friends' gaze for support, but Aubrey merely rolled her eyes and continued to gather her scattered articles from around the room. Giving her a glance that clearly let Aubrey know she found her useless, Summer's eyes roamed quickly around the room, landing on a box of extra strength tampons. "…Because I just got my period!"

"What the-" Summer glared at her friend to silence her opposition before turning back to the closed door.

"I'll be right out I just need to change my underwear!" she moved from the door over to her friend's side, where she pushed her out of the way and dropped all her weight onto Aubrey's trunk.

"Lock it," she mumbled, motioning for her friend to move quickly. A quiet 'click' sounded as Aubrey finally shut the trunk, and Summer stood once more.

"Okay I'm ready now!" She called to her brother, making her way towards the door once more.

"Wait-" Aubrey cut in, and turning Summer realized that the trunk had fallen open once more. "Do you have… supplies?" She asked in an intentionally loud voice, border line shouting, meanwhile desperately banging her trunk.

"Oh- uh yeah. I need some tampons!" Summer couldn't resist rolling her eyes, even as she spoke the words.

"Mom has some in the car, come on already," Of course Summer had already known that, she had just been trying to stall. However, it did sort of scare her that her brother had known about the box in the glove compartment. Holding back her questions, she just continued with her original story.

"But I might need more!" She insisted desperately.

"What is this," her brothers muffled shouts were apparent from behind the closed door. "The river Jordan?"

"Riley," She began, disgusted. "That was the rudest, most…

…brilliant book ever!" Remus exclaimed, eyes lighting up at the thought of the novel he had spent two days straight reading. If his friends had known that the topic of his discussion was in the form of The Fall of Early Wizardry, then they probably wouldn't have been too interested. However, they probably would have found it quite comical that Remus was sitting at his kitchen table, already dressed and ready for the Express, talking to none other then his barn owl, Aristotle.

"Wow, I'm pathetic." He realized suddenly, sighing. He dejectedly pushed his plate of waffles forward and out of the way before dropping his head forward, onto the table.

"Mum!" He whined, lifting his head once more. "Mum!" He repeated, raising his voice. "Can we leave yet?"

"Just a minute!" She called, entering the kitchen. "Your father's just shaving now. Do you need to join him?" Mrs. Lupin asked, and Remus couldn't help but notice the hopeful tone in her voice.

Rubbing his smooth chin, Remus sighed loudly, deciding to ignore her question altogether rather then be pressured into joining his father where he would be humiliated by his lack of… _puberty._

"I'm going to wait by the fireplace." He stood and began to drag his feet towards the living room, owl perched dutifully on his shoulder.

Ten minutes later, the small family stood outside of the barrier that held apart the muggle and wizarding worlds. Remus was bouncing up and down excitedly on the balls of his feet, anxious to escape the grip of his mother, who was squeezing him so tightly he wondered if he'd ever be able to breath normally again.

"Alright well, I've got to-" he pried his mothers arms off of him, face flustered in embarrassment.

"Now now, not so fast young man. Remember to brush your teeth every night, and for goodness sake shower more then you did this summer. You're at the age where once a week just doesn't cut it! Don't forget to scrub behind your ears and-"

"Okay mum, I get it." Mrs. Lupin smiled sadly at her son.

"You really are growing up so fast. I can tell I'm embarrassing you," Remus smiled appreciatively at his mothers' comment, figuring she understood. However within moments the grin vanished as she continued to nag him.

"And when it's 'your time of the month', don't forget your potion."

"Look's like Summer's not the only one with PMSing problems," A voice sounded from behind him, and Remus blushed furiously realizing someone had heard his mother's comment.

Turning around he found himself relieved to be face to face with Aubrey. "Thank god, I thought…

…we were meeting here at 10 of." She mumbled to the ground, aimlessly tapping her fingers on the top of her suitcase. Lily Evan's was sitting cross legged on a bench; she'd been awaiting the arrival of her friends for almost fifteen minutes, needless to say she had gotten quite comfortable in time it was taking for everyone to get themselves to the platform. She scanned the crowd for anyone to talk to. At this point she wouldn't even mind talking to Alice, a very nice but exceedingly eccentric fellow Gryffindor who talked about a mile a minute and never seemed to run out of fuel.

She knew, that while her friends were meant to be here with her, they were either, A. Reading a book, B. frantically racing out the door or C., in the case of Sirius and Potter, **eating**.

Lily hadn't had time this morning to spend hours devouring food, or have philosophical discussions with her non-existent owl, because she had Petunia to deal with. Her day started with a scream, from her darling sister of course. It was Petunias favourite and least favourite day of the year. She loathed it because for once she was not the center of attention, the poor girl. And of course she adored September 1st because she was rid of Lily, for almost 3 and ½ months. Lily rejoiced at the separation even more perhaps than her sister did, because the next morning she wouldn't wake up to screaming, though waking up to her blanket's being pulled off wasn't much better, it was a step up, an upgrade if you will. She got to see her friends after almost an entire summer with out them, and Petunia got to see her parents, the same parent's she **had** seen every day and the same parents she **would be** seeing every day. Petunia wasn't what you would call a 'social butterfly', in fact she was quite the opposite. The only company she ever kept and could ever keep was Vernon, our hopelessly obese neighbor who, I'm convinced, only even talked to Petunia because she invited him over for dinner, and food is extremely persuasive.

"Oi Lily!" Remus called from a few feet away nearly dropping Aristotle as he frantically waved. Lily winced as the bird toppled to the ground when Remus tried, unsuccessfully to resituate the bird's cage. She hopped to her feet nonetheless and rushed over to the red faced boy.

"I see Aristotle still knows how to take a good blow to the head." She as she remembered last year when James had thrown his potions book at the owl out of his frustration and anger with homework in general.

"Yeah well…I read a book this morning." He exclaimed proudly in hopes of reconciling his reputation and regaining his manly hood.

"Did you now?" She asked, smiling knowingly. She picked up the cage and when Remus made a grab for it, she whisked it away deciding it was better for Remus and the owl if she carried it back the few feet to what she had deemed as _her _bench.

"It was called The Fall of Early Wizardry." He exclaimed. She met his statement with a worried look.

"Now Remus, I know you stumbled a bit just then, but it's just not right for all of us wizards and witches to be summed up by _your _actions…" She said patting his back attempting to let him down easy. Poor Remus, now he was even more frazzled than before, because in all honesty, he just wanted to talk about his book.

"But Lily, I was hoping we could-"

"It's about bloody time!" Lily shouted. Aubrey and Summer seemed to intent on bickering to even notice Lily's pleading stature. She rolled her eyes and rushed towards them leaving Remus to pathetically stab at conversation with a leggy seventh year Ravenclaw that was way out of his league.

"Okay, I just want to point out that you left me sitting _alone _on the bench, for twenty minutes, and then Remus showed up and frankly I'd rather be alone." She added in an undertone that was just loud enough for Summer to break her apparent fight with Aubrey and scold me.

"Take that back, we agreed not to be passive aggressive this year!"

I rolled my eyes "Summer, if I went over to Remus and told him that, I think he might just shed a tear. Then he'd break out into Justin Timberlake's 'Cry Me a River' and then all hell would break loose." She replied. Lily was regaining her sarcastic bite that had been lost over the summer; Petunia wasn't even worth responding to.

Summer bit her lip and tilted her head contemplating her suggestion before shrugging in realization that Lily was right about Remus' fragile sate. Lily and Aubrey followed Summer's gaze over to Remus who had taken out his toothbrush and was now using it to brush Aristotle's sleek and shiny feathers.

"Oh God," Aubrey whispered in a mix of fear and worry.

"You're lucky, usually he uses it to brush his teeth after, but I don't think he brought his 'paste' today." James entered the conversation and earned unbelieving stares from each party. Too enraptured by Remus' behavior to respond to Potter, they all turned back to the afternoon's hired entertainment. Unfortunately however, the act seemed to be coming to a close, as Remus set his toothbrush on top of his trunk, now pulling a book from the inside pocket of his coat and burying his face in it.

"Oh, that _reminds_ me," Sirius but in, finally approaching the group a little behind James. "I forgot to brush my teeth before we left your house this morning! Oi, Remus!" Sirius jogged the several paces distance between the group and Remus, waving his hands frantically. "Can I borrow your toothbrush, mate?"

The stares just kept coming. Four figures stood gaping at Sirius as he grabbed unknowingly at the toothbrush perched on Remus's trunk. How he could miss the white dandruff, or more so the several feathers that had been lodged between the bristles of the brush, was beyond any of any of their knowledge. However, Remus just smiled and nodded, though his smile vanished nearly as quickly as it had appeared.

"Actually, I think I left my toothpaste at my place."

"No worries," Sirius insisted, reaching into his cloak pocket. "I always keep a bottle on me at all times. That and 'Tide to Go'. You should get some of that stuff, don't want the ladies seeing you with stains on your jumper… or teeth for that matter."

Horrorstruck, Lily, James, Summer, and Aubrey watched as Sirius began to squeeze a chunk of paste onto Remus's brush.

Morals overcoming interest, Lily turned to her friends and spoke. "Don't you reckon we should tell him where that toothbrush has been?" Her friends slowly shifted their gaze from Sirius and Remus to Lily.

"No," James insisted as Summer simultaneously responded, "Yes."

Lily turned to Aubrey for the tie breaker, but she was already watching Sirius once more. "Too late, he's already made it to his back molars."

Sirius finished, happily spitting his feather invested saliva onto the platform and looking up at his friends. Or so they thought, anyway until they noticed his stare was slightly glazed over and vacant.

"Oh look!" He observed, cheerfully watching the train, "They're closing all the compartment doors! I love how they all close at once it's so…" Sirius drifted off into his happy place as the others began to panic.

"Shit," Aubrey swore, grabbing her trunk and beginning to jog towards the slowly closing doors. The others followed in suit; James grabbing Sirius roughly by the arm and Lily backtracking to grab hold of Remus, her trunk, and of course Aristotle.

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